


Cheese Sandwich

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Adjusting, Adoption, Croque Monsieur, Culture Shock, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Grilled Cheese, Lunch, Rich People Food, Robin - Freeform, family outing, pretentious restaurants, smol Jason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-08 02:57:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20288596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: Jason's feet don't reach the floor, and the menu is in French.





	Cheese Sandwich

**Author's Note:**

> Finally crossposting this little thing for Jason's birthday one day late. Happy birthday!

Jason’s feet were swinging above the floor.

They did that most places he sat in a chair, because the world was sized for adults, but he was especially aware of it right now. Pulling them up onto the seat with him would definitely not be appropriate. Even letting them swing seemed like it was probably going to draw negative attention. Why hadn’t he asked Alfred what to do with his feet.

There was a tablecloth. People would have to be paying pretty close attention to notice his gently swinging feet. But he was with Bruce, so they _might_ be.

And none of that helped him with the impossible damn lunch menu. It was supposedly shorter and simpler and cheaper than the dinner menu. The dinner menu didn’t even have prices on it. Ugh.

“_Bruce,” _he hissed, finally, giving in to the inevitable. Bruce looked up from his own menu, blandly pleasant. “It’s in French!”

“Oh. All the dish names are, yes,” Bruce acknowledged. Which was the important part, since where there even _was _English text under the French words it was clarifying that you could get something with or without mushrooms, or things like that, not explaining what the dish _was, _like all the Indian places in Jason's part of Gotham always had the courtesy to do.

Though come to think of it the Chinese places mostly didn't bother.

Bruce leaned over across the table so he could see Jason’s menu if he turned it sideways, which, there went subtlety. Jason guessed people pointing things out to each other on the menu, or at least to kids, wasn’t weird even when you were fancy, because he was here to learn how to act normal at this kind of upscale place and Bruce was doing it, and he wouldn’t do it if it was a bad example. But he still felt uncomfortably exposed and noticeable.

(He looked fine. He knew he looked fine. He hadn’t done anything that could mess up his hair, and they hadn’t gotten anything to eat or drink yet that could have messed up his clothes, and Alfred had picked them out so they were exactly the right level of formal for lunch-but-not-dinner at this particular level of restaurant.

He tried again to stop swinging his feet. He stopped himself for the eighth time from shredding the edge of his menu. They probably left them unlaminated _specifically_ to tempt people like him into looking bad.)

“I recommend this,” Bruce said, tapping an item about halfway down the ornately printed page of smooth ivory cardstock. Jason wasn’t entirely sure how to _pronounce _that. Krawkwet? Crow-kay?

...Like in Alice? It probably wasn't a flamingo-based lunch.

Bruce continued, “Hard to go wrong with croque monsieur.”

_Croke._ Why put a q in when you weren’t going to pronounce it? He squinted, almost sure he wasn't being pranked. Bruce wouldn't, not when he was here to learn. “What is it?”

“National lunch of France. It’s basically just a grilled cheese sandwich with ham.”

Jason looked at the menu, up at Bruce, and back at the menu again. “And it’s _sixteen dollars?_ I could get the stuff to make _eight_ of those for…under eight dollars. Six if I was near a real grocery store, and didn’t have to pay bodega prices.”

Bruce grinned. It was one of those weird expressions, the ones you almost never saw in costume but not because they were fake. “Well, the cheese and bread and ham are going to be much more expensive versions, which _usually_ improves the flavor and nutrition, and it’s amazing what an experienced chef can sometimes do with simple ingredients, but yeah, we’re mostly paying for the privilege of eating our toasted ham and cheese here, at La Fleur.”

“Hmph,” said Jason.

Bruce sat back to his own side of the table. “Croque monsieur pretty much means ‘Mister Crunch,’” he confided. “Or 'munch,' maybe. France isn’t as fancy as it likes foreigners to think it is.”

Jason snickered. “Okay, then. I’ll have a Mister Crunch.”

“If you want a fried egg included, you can have Missus Crunch.”

Jason set his menu down to join Bruce’s on the tabletop with a sense of relief. He’d probably need to work out a strategy for incomprehensible menus at some point, but that wasn’t the task today. “Nah. The very manly ham sandwich is fine.”

The very polite waiter turned up next to their table less than two minutes later, expectant but silent. “I’d like a _croque monsieur_, please,” said Jason, pronouncing it very carefully, which probably sounded ridiculous but better than getting it wrong.

“And I’ll have the chicken confit, thank you,” said Bruce, passing his menu to the guy, who managed to take it, nod, and write both their orders down in one smooth series of motions.

Jason wondered if the guy had gone to the same school as Alfred. He handed over his menu, too. “And juice for both of us to drink,” Bruce added, and the waiter noted that too before disappearing like magic. Or Batman.

Alfred and Bruce still refused to tell him which of them had learned to disappear from the other. This restaurant experience was weighting the odds toward Alfred.

As it turned out, Jason was not a huge fan of the French idea of a good grilling cheese, though it wasn’t _bad_, but his sandwich came oozing delicious gloopy white sauce that made up for the cheese and was an absolute beast to keep from spotting his sleeves.

He was pretty sure Alfred would be proud. Bruce certainly looked like he was, and while the guy who was training him to kick the shit out of bad guys being proud of him for ordering and consuming a sandwich without embarrassing himself was kind of stupid, he couldn’t help feeling all warm and fuzzy under the ribs about it.

If he wasn’t Robin he would be at roughly negative a million cool points by now, and he didn’t even care.

**Author's Note:**

> look i am no expert on french sandwich but some people insist on the bechamel sauce and bechamel sauce is _good_.


End file.
